>
> --- In [email protected], "sparaig" <sparaig@> wrote:
>
> > If you guys REALLY want to see a rating system implemented, check
out
> > how it is used in the http://www.slashdot.org forums. The geeks
know
> > what they're doing and have been doing it for nearly as long as
there
> > has been an internet, if not longer since there were geek
discussion
> > forums around before the internet.
>
> Yes, agreed, great solution. I didn't see though were you rate, but
> maybe its only for members. A general scoring combined with ceratin
> categories like informative, insightful, humorous. And the type of
> posts show also up in the profile. That combined with the +/- sytem
of
> http://www.dailykos.com and a special placement of highscored posts
> could be the solution.
>
More than you ever wanted to know about the slashdot
moderation/scoring system:
How did the moderation system develop?
In order to understand the system, it might help to understand how we
got there. It wasn't random, it was trial and error and progression.
I'm constantly tweaking and changing, trying to squeeze more out.
Trying to make a more efficient, more fair system.
Before Moderation
In the beginning, Slashdot was small. We got dozens of posts each
day, and it was good. The signal was high, the noise was low.
Moderation was unnecessary because we were nobody. It was a different
world then. Each day we grew, adding more and more users, and
increasing the number of comments submitted. As this happened, many
users discovered new and annoying ways to abuse the system. The
authors had but one option: Delete annoying comments. But as the
system grew, we knew that we would never be able to keep up. We were
outnumbered.
Hand Picked Few
So, I picked people to help. Just a few. 25 or so at the end. They
were given the simple ability to add or subtract points to comments.
The primary function of these brave souls was to weed out spam and
First Post and flame bait. Plus, when they found smart stuff, to
bring it out.
The system worked pretty well, but as Slashdot continued to grow, it
was obvious that these 25 people wouldn't be enough to keep up with
the thousands of posts we were getting each day. It was obvious that
we needed more.
400 Lucky Winners
So we picked more the only way we could. Using the actions of the
original 25 moderators, we picked 400 more. We picked the 400 people
who had posted good comments: comments that had been flagged as the
cream of Slashdot. Immediately several dozen of these new moderators
had their access revoked for being abusive, but they settled down.
At this time I began to experiment with ways of restricting the power
of moderators to prevent abuses. 25 people are easy to keep an eye
on, but 400 is another matter. I knew that someday I would have even
less control since I intended to eventually give access to even more
people. While moderators still added and subtracted points, the
number of points they were given dropped from hundreds to dozens.
As time went on, I began working on the next phase: mass moderation.
I learned a lot from having so many moderators. I learned that I
needed to limit the power of each person to prevent a single rogue
from spoiling it for everyone. And then we took the next step.
Today: Most Anyone
Today any regular Slashdot reader is probably eligible to become a
moderator. A variety of factors weigh into it, but if you are logged
in when you browse Slashdot comments, you might occasionally be
granted moderator access. Don't worry about it. Just keep reading
this document and learn what to do about it!
Who
It's probably the most difficult part of the process: who is allowed
to moderate. On one hand, many people say "Everyone," but I've chosen
to avoid that path because the potential for abuse is so great.
Instead, I've set up a few simple rules for determining who is
eligible to moderate.
Logged In User If the system can't keep track, it won't work, so you
gotta log in. Sorry if you're paranoid, but this system demands a
certain level of accountability.
Regular Slashdot Readers The scripts track average accesses from each
logged-in user. It then selects eligible users who read an average
number of times. The homepage doesn't count either. It then picks
users from the middle of the pack- no obsessive compulsive reloaders,
and nobody who just happened to read an article this week.
Long Time Readers The system throws out the newest few thousand
accounts. This prevents people from creating new accounts to simply
get moderator access, but more importantly, means that newbies will
have to be part of the community for a few months before they gain
access to the controls to a system they don't understand.
Willing to Serve If you don't want to moderate, just visit your user
preferences, and set yourself as "Unwilling."
Positive Contributors Slashdot tracks your "karma." If you have
Positive, Good, or Excellent karma, this means you have posted more
good comments than bad, and are eligible to moderate. This weeds out
spam accounts.
The end result is a pool of eligible users that represent (hopefully)
average, positive Slashdot contributors. Occasionally (well, every 30
minutes actually), the system checks the number of comments that have
been posted, and gives a proportionate number of eligible
users "tokens." When any user acquires a certain number of tokens, he
or she becomes a moderator. This means that you'll need to be
eligible for many of these slices in order to actually gain access.
It all works to make sure that everyone takes turns, and nobody can
abuse the system, and that only "regular" readers become moderators
(as opposed to some random newbie ;)
Answered by: CmdrTaco
Last Modified: 6/10/03
How does moderation work?
When moderators are given access, they are given a number of points
of influence to play with. Each comment they moderate deducts a
point. When they run out of points, they are done serving until next
time it is their turn.
Moderation takes place by selecting an adjective from a drop down
list that appears next to comments containing descriptive words
like "Flamebait" or "Informative." Bad words will reduce the
comment's score by a single point, and good words increase a
comment's score by a single point. All comments are scored on an
absolute scale from -1 to 5. Logged-in users start at 1 (although
this can vary from 0 to 2 based on their karma) and anonymous users
start at 0.
Moderators can not participate in the same discussion as both a
moderator and a poster. This is to prevent abuses, and while it is
one of the more controversial aspects of the system, I'm sticking to
it. There are enough lurkers that moderate that, if you want to post,
feel free.
Moderation points expire after 3 days if they are left unused. You
then go back into the pool and might someday be given access again.
Concentrate more on promoting than on demoting. The real goal here is
to find the juicy good stuff and let others read it. Do not promote
personal agendas. Do not let your opinions factor in. Try to be
impartial about this. Simply disagreeing with a comment is not a
valid reason to mark it down. Likewise, agreeing with a comment is
not a valid reason to mark it up. The goal here is to share ideas. To
sift through the haystack and find needles. And to keep the children
who like to spam Slashdot in check.
Answered by: CmdrTaco
Last Modified: 6/19/00
Do Editors Moderate?
The Slashdot Editors have unlimited mod points, and we have no
problem using them.
Our moderations represent about 3% of all moderation, and according
to Meta Moderation, the fairness of these moderations are either
statistically indistinguishable from non-admin users, or
substantially better. The raw numbers are: 95.1% of non-admin upmods
are fair, and 94.7% of admin upmods are fair. 79.1% of non-admin
downmods are fair, and 83.6% of admin downmods are fair.
The editors tend to find crapfloods and moderate them down: a single
malicious user can post dozens of comments, which would require
several users to moderate them down, but a single admin can take care
of it in seconds. This tends to remove the obvious garbage from the
discussion so that the general population can use their mod points to
determine good. Otherwise, a few crapfloods could suck a lot of
moderator points out of the system and throw things out of whack.
You can argue that allowing admins unlimited moderation is somehow
inherently unfair, but one of the goals of Slashdot is to produce
readable content for a variety of readers with a variety of reading
habits. I believe this process improves discussions for the vast
majority of Slashdot Readers, so it will stay this way.
Answered by: CmdrTaco
Last Modified: 4/12/03
What are thresholds?
Your "threshold" is the minimum score that a comment needs to have if
it is to be displayed to you. Comments are scored from -1 to 5, and
you can set your threshold at any score within that range. So, for
example, if you set your threshold at 2, only comments with scores of
2 or above would be displayed. Setting your threshold at -1 will
display all comments. 0 is almost all comments. 1 filters out most
Anonymous Cowards, and so on. Higher threshold settings reduce the
number of comments you see, but (in theory, anyway) the quality of
the posts you do see increases.
Answered by: CmdrTaco
Last Modified: 6/12/00
What is karma?
Your karma is a reference that primarily represents how your comments
have been moderated in the past. Karma is structured on the following
scale "Terrible, Bad, Neutral, Positive, Good, and Excellent." If a
comment you post is moderated up, your karma will rise. Consequently,
if you post a comment that has been moderated down, your karma will
fall.
In addition to moderation, other things factor into karma as well.
You can get some karma by submitting a story that we decide to post.
Also, metamoderation can cause your karma to change. This encourages
good moderators, and ideally removes moderator access from bad ones.
Note that being moderated Funny doesn't help your karma. You have to
be smart, not just a smart-ass.
Answered by: CmdrTaco
Last Modified: 6/03/03
What does "Good", "Bad" etc. Karma Mean?
Karma is the sum of your activity on Slashdot. This means posting,
moderation, story submissions. It's just an integer in a database.
The tiers are Terrible, Bad, Neutral, Positive, Good, and Excellent.
Answered by: CmdrTaco
Last Modified: 7/12/02
Karma used to be a number, now it is a word, this sucks!
People like to treat their Slashdot Karma like some sort of video
game, with a numeric integer representing their score in the game.
People who do this simply are missing the point. The text label is
one way we've decided to emphasize the point that karma doesn't
matter.
Answered by: CmdrTaco
Last Modified: 7/12/02
Is there a limit to how much karma you can accumulate?
Yes. Karma is now capped at "Excellent" This was done to keep people
from running up insane karma scores, and then being immune from
moderation. Despite some theories to the contrary, the karma cap
applies to every account.
Answered by: CmdrTaco
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